Family
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Rick/Shane/Lori, short. S1, Ep5 "Wildfire." Rick said he'd feel differently if it was his family, but it was his family.


**AN: This is in a series of "shorts" that I'm doing for entertainment value as I rewatch some episodes. Some of them are interpretations/rewrites of scenes that are in each episode. Some are scenes that never happened but could have in "imagination land". They aren't meant to be taken seriously and they aren't meant to be mind-blowing fic. They're just for entertainment value and allowing me to stretch my proverbial writing muscles. If you find any enjoyment in them at all, then I'm glad. If you don't, I apologize for wasting your time. They're "shorts" or "drabbles" or whatever you want to call them so I'm not worrying with how long they are. Some will be shorter, some will be longer.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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 _"If it was your family, you'd feel differently."_

What Rick was missing was that it _was_ his family. It was the closest he had ever come to having a family. It may be the closest he would _ever_ come to having a family.

 _Lori and Carl were his family._

He hadn't thought of them that way in the beginning. Not really. At first it had been about Rick. It had been saving the life of his best friend. But when he realized that wasn't going to happen? It had been about protecting Rick's wife and son. He'd gotten them out of King County. He'd kept them safe and kept them away from what the government was doing to Atlanta.

 _Everything else had just sort of happened._

In protecting them—putting his life on the line for them every time that he had to—they had become something more to Shane. They'd become the family that he'd never had. The family that he hadn't even really realized he was missing in his life. Carl needed a father and he looked up to Shane. He made him feel like a hero. He made Shane feel like everything he'd ever done wrong in his life didn't matter.

And Lori?

The first time they'd been together had been born of fear of the unknown, desperation about everything that was surrounding them, and simple lust. It had been an almost animal instinct—the need to fuck because the world was ending and they'd all surely die. It had been driven by instinct and Shane couldn't pretend to sugar coat it.

But Lori, like Carl, had made Shane feel good about himself. She'd made him feel incredible. He was invincible. He could save them and he would. Even though he had no idea what was going on with the world or if they'd even to survive to see the next sunrise, Lori's confidence in him drove him to believe that he would simply figure it out. She needed him—he was her protector.

And she and Carl were everything to him.

They had become _his_.

They would have remained his, too, if Rick had never reappeared. Rick was dead, that's what Shane had thought, in a hospital that may or may not even be standing any longer. Shane had almost forgotten about him beyond the hero status that anyone lost holds in memory. But then he'd come back.

And immediately the world had turned upside down for Shane again.

In the flash of a moment, Rick had started to "run" the group. Everyone there had looked to Shane for his guidance and his leadership. They'd trusted his skills and they'd trusted his opinions. They'd believed that he would keep them _all_ safe and he'd find a place for them to live. He'd been doing a fine job of things, too, but Rick's appearance on the scene changed everything. Rick was a man who wanted to be in charge. He was a man who wanted to be followed. And, for whatever reason, people always seemed to want to follow Rick.

It hadn't been any different on the force. No matter Shane's merits, it was always Rick that was the "leader". It was always Shane who was "sidekick".

Rick had taken over the group without even a thought of Shane.

And Shane had lost Lori and Carl. With Rick back in the picture, all that had happened was erased. Lori returned to Rick, her lawfully wedded husband, and she forgot about the love that she'd felt for Shane. She forgot about her declarations to him of feelings that she held for him. She forgot, entirely, about all the times she said that he was wonderful—because of all that he'd done for her—because her husband was back.

A husband she hadn't always liked. A husband who hadn't always liked her.

Shane had a family, and he lost them, but he wasn't letting them go.

Rick was a leader, yes, but he was also someone who had the need to be so involved in everything—so much the hero—that he lacked priority. He lacked the ability to know that, sometimes, decisions had to be made, even if they weren't the easiest ones to make or they weren't the ones that would make him always look the best. Rick didn't know how to navigate this world—a world made for a different kind of man than Rick Grimes, a world made for a man like Shane—and he wouldn't survive. One day, he'd slip up.

And Shane was going to be right there to catch Lori and Carl when Rick fell. He'd be right there to reclaim his family. He'd do whatever he had to do, still stuck in Rick's shadow, to make sure that Rick didn't drag them down with him when he went.

Holding the man that he'd considered a brother in the sights of his gun, Shane watched him.

How easy would it be? How simple would it be to pull the trigger? The area was thickly wooded. There were Walkers roaming about and everyone was on edge. There were animals and things that rustled the brush. With nerves as they were, people were jumpy. Things happened out of knee-jerk reaction and hyper-aware instinct. He could pull the trigger right now. He could render Rick Grimes as gone as he'd believed him to be when he'd left him in Atlanta. He could swear he'd thought it was a Walker set on wreaking more havoc on their camp. He could cry and make a scene over the body that he carried back to camp—the body of the man that he loved more than any man on this Earth. A man he wouldn't hesitate to kill for the love of his family.

And then, he could hold Lori, just the same as he'd done to get her through everything so far, and he could comfort Carl. He could mourn, with them, the loss of Rick's life in such a tragic accident.

 _And he could reclaim his family._

He might have done it, too, if the rustling in the brush hadn't caught his attention, prepared him to kill an actual Walker, and left him standing face to face with Dale—a busy body with too much time on his hands and not enough sense to not meddle in the things that didn't concern him.

No one would die today. Not Rick and not Dale.

But, one day, Shane would have his family back. He deserved them, after all, more than Rick ever had.


End file.
